This invention relates to mucosal adjuvants.
Clostridium difficile is a gram-positive, spore-forming, toxigenic bacterium that causes antibiotic-associated diarrhea which can progress into severe and sometimes fatal colitis. Upon disruption of the normal intestinal flora by, e.g., antibiotic or anti-neoplastic therapy, C. difficile may become established in the colon and produce two high molecular weight toxins, Toxin A and Toxin B. Both of these polypeptides are cytotoxins, but Toxin B is greater than 1000-fold more potent than Toxin A. Toxin A is also an enterotoxin, causing accumulation of fluid in ligated animal intestinal loops.